Yoga Weight Loss

Crime and Yoga are not often two words that are used together in the same sentence, and that is part of the reason why they are combined in this article. When you think of a stereo typical criminal being someone who does Yoga just doesn’t spring to mind. We think of criminals as being angry and aggressive, or at least very active, while Yogi are seen as calm and sedentary. The two are so far apart that it’s hard to consider that someone who regularly undertakes Yoga classes could ever become a criminal.

Perhaps Yoga should become a compulsory addition to fighting the crime rate, and here are some reasons why that might not be so impractical.

Yoga classes begin with a simple standing exercise, and the exercise is this. Breathe! You can spend a significant part of a Yoga class concentrating on the simple action of taking a deep breath, breathing it in and feeling it’s life giving force extend to all the far reaches of the body, and then exhaling it just as deeply and completely. This simple act of concentrating on breathing, has an unparalleled ability to focus our mental concentration. It allows us to clear away unwanted or disturbing thoughts and restore ourselves to a central balance.

The calming and focusing benefits of a Yoga breathing exercise, can quickly and easily clear away the types of distractions and temptations that can lead to a criminal act, or an impulsive one at least. Imagine the potential of that on habitual criminals – the ability to take a moment before committing a crime, focus their thoughts and realize that it is not the best course of action and should be avoided.

Most domestic violence is a direct result of too much stress and strain in a relationship. Statistics show that the arguments that lead to an incident of domestic violence are almost always of the ‘little things’. The final straw being a little thing rather than a big important issue. Let’s insert the ability to calm ourselves, sharpen our mind and rationalize into that situation. Domestic Violence is a result of people ‘snapping’. Uncluttering the mind and calming oneself would mean that people never got to that point.

Other forms of violent crime are similar to domestic violence – they occur when tension rises up over time until one person snaps and throws a punch or pulls a knife. With the right self-calming tools at their disposal these criminals would be far less likely to offend.

Of course, all that assumes that the criminal does not want to commit a crime and only does so due to a failure to see an alternative when a certain set of circumstances present themselves. They are hungry and can take a loaf of bread so they do, or they feel threatened, unappreciated or disrespected and see striking out as the only options. Yoga would not benefit the kind of calculating mind that makes a career of criminal activities because each crime is carefully pre-meditated.

Or would it!

Yoga is an art form which is vast, elaborate and could easily roundup as a comprehensive workout for an individual. Notwithstanding elaborate positive effects yoga has on the emotional, psychological and spiritual well being of an individual.

For someone who has a passion for yoga, getting an in depth know how about the art form could have life transforming effects for one’s psyche! You’d simply come to understand and recognize yoga in its true essence. Yoga definitely goes beyond being a set of poses which boost the individual’s flexibility while improving posture. It’s something which helps create a link between individual consciousness and divine consciousness.

It is also the case that more and more people are turning to Yoga as a means of both improving their physical health, and their diet. It is practiced as both an exercise and as a diet regime, particularly by those wishing to lose weight. Moreover,there is an increasing awareness in society of the links between a bad diet, and bad health, and perhaps we are finally, slowly but surely, turning our backs on consuming vast quantities of fast and processed food. Most of this processed food is packed to the rim with refined sugar and salt, and lets be honest much more synthetic rubbish besides.

So to conclude, it is not disputed that most people know of the physical side and have at least heard of the mental and spiritual benefits of yoga, but few know that the exercises that form the basis of Yoga are only the Western Worlds interpretation of Yoga. Traditionally Indian Yoga includes an entire philosophy on how to treat each other and live our lives. If criminals also followed this component of Yoga it would be possible to see crime disappear. One can only dream…

This video very much complements our article, particularly with regard to the calming effects gained by practicing Yoga!